forgotten pasts
by earthenkynder
Summary: the story of alyssa riddle, tom's twin. NOT a mary sue. it will eventually explain why tom turned dark, snape's past, etc... please r/r. enjoy!


title: forgotten pasts (i'm not very happy with this, though, so it may change.)

by: earthenkynder

rating: pg. nothing too bad, and i doubt that it'll get any worse.

disclaimer: alyssa and a few of her schoolmates are mine. everyone else belongs to j.k.rowling.

a/n: feel free to r/r, but please be merciful. this is the first actual fanfic I've ever written. and, NO, this is not a marysue.

~*~*~*~

ch. 1 

Hogwarts, 1941

Alyssa Riddle disentangled herself from Septimus Snape, leaning her head back against the cold stone wall behind her.

"I'd better get going," she sighed, absentmindedly entwining her fingers with those of her boyfriend. Upon seeing his puppy-face, she quickly added "Not that I mind these midnight rendezvous in the common room." A mischievous grin played over her face as she stood on tiptoes to give him a quick kiss.

"Don't you mean midnight snogging sessions?" he asked playfully, reaching down to tickle her sides.

Alyssa tried to feign a thoughtful look, failing miserably because Tim was still tickling her. "Well... yes. That too. But really..." she said, taking a step away from him. "I need to go now."

"Where on earth do you and that twin of yours get to, anyway?" Tim asked, with the same perplexed expression he wore every night like this.

"Family secret," Alyssa smiled and kissed him one last time before she grabbed her bag and invisibility cloak off the couch and slipped soundlessly out of the portrait hole.

~*~

Alyssa opened the door to the Potions room in the dungeon, going slowly to make sure it didn't squeak. She poked her head in to make sure that the room was unoccupied, and slunk quietly in, nevermind that she was wearing her cloak. She wasn't really paying that much attention to details. She quickly crossed the room, and opened the door to the Professor Morgan Snape's office with the key that the professor had given her. _Ah, the joys of dating the Potion Master's nephew, much less being the best potions student in my year_, Alyssa thought to herself. _Now if only you could get those grades in charms_, whispered a treacherous little voice in the back of her head. _Oh, do shut up_, she hissed back at it. _If you spent as much time studying as you do with Tim, you'd be the best student in the school_, it continued. Alyssa rolled her eyes and, while still carrying on this conversation, pulled a list out of her bag and, glancing over it quickly, began to fill her bag with bottles and phials of ingredients from the professor's stores. She was so distracted that she was barely looking at the bottles as she pulled them off the shelves, and didn't even notice the steady hissing coming from her bag. _And let's not even start with your marks in Divination..._ Alyssa sighed, closed her bag, and hurried out of the room.

~*~

Tom Riddle looked up from the bubbling cauldron in front of him as the door to old storage room opened, creaking softly. Though the room was used for the storage of all the old and ancient supplies that no longer had any use, in a hidden corridor at the top of a tower that everyone had all but forgotten, it had once been a small worship room. Back when the castle was still functioning as an actual castle, it had been the era when the inhabitants had churches built right in. The only evidence left of this was a stained glass window, tinted many shades of blue, with a single, brilliant yellow star near the top. The pregnant moon shone through, casting the colours onto the floor. The only other source of light was the fire crackling under the cauldron.

"You're late. Has Tim been keeping you busy?" Tom asked Alyssa as she suddenly appeared from under her cloak, a lopsided grin on his face.

Alyssa rolled her eyes at her twin. "No busier than you've been with Dralon's little sister Dru," she drawled.

Tom chuckled. "Yeah. Did you see the elder Malfoy today?" he asked with a smirk. "Looked ready to go headhunting."

"Yes, and for _your_ head," she replied as she began to pull potion ingredients out of her bag. "Although one can hardly blame him, what with the things you and Dru have been caught doing." Walking over to the cauldron and setting down a handful of vials filled with green and purple liquids, she deepened her voice, scrunched up her face, and started blustering around the room in an impression of Headmaster Dippet. "_Thomas Riddle and Drusilla Malfoy! I never thought I'd see the day when two students, at Hogwarts, of all places, would partake in such vulgar public displays of affection! Detention, for both of you, and thirty points off of Slytherin!_"

Tom was doubled up, his high, keening laughter filling the room. "That -- was -- perfect!" he gasped out.

"Honestly, though, I can't stand the man," Alyssa said. "Did you know that he gave Orion, Gabriel, Ian and I a detention the other day, for hugging each other in the halls? I mean, he said the we were involved in "group PDA". _"Group PDA"_! Honestly, he basically accused us of having an orgy in the hallway!"

"What?" Tom screeched indignantly. "You mean Black, Lupin, and Quirrell?" Alyssa nodded. "Bu-but... they're your best friends!" Tom sputtered. "How can he accuse you of doing something like that when they're your best friends? Not to mention that if they ever did anything to you Tim would probably poison their pumpkin juice..."

Alyssa nodded again. "All I can say is that I'm glad that Professor Dumbledore is next in line for headmaster." At this, a rather dark look crossed over Tom's face. "What?" Alyssa asked him as she crossed back over the room to grab more stuff from her bag.

"I don't know, it's just that Dumbledore gives me the creeps," Tom said sulkily.

"He gives you the creeps?" Alyssa looked back over her shoulder at her twin, raising an eyebrow. "How on earth can a man like Dumbledore give you the creeps?"

"He smiles too much," Tom scowled.

"And he doessssn't like ssssnakessss."

Alyssa started as a red and tan head poked itself out of her bag. "Oh, honestly," Alyssa exclaimed as she held out her arm for the blood python to slither into. "Nagini, I really don't mind you coming for joy rides with me, but could you please tell me before you decide to pop out of my bag and give me a heart attack?"

"Ssssorry, Alyssssa."

As Tom chuckled in the background, Alyssa rolled her eyes and dug a few bottles out of her bag and walked over to the still bubbling cauldron. 

"So, did you get everything?" Tom asked as Alyssa set down the bottles and lowered her arm to let Nagini slither off to lay on the floor, close to the fire.

"'Course I did. I'm dating the nephew of Professor Darla Snape," Alyssa grinned cheekily. "It's an all-access pass to the potions lab."

Tom grinned a grin identical to his sister's, and proceeded to pour sandalwood and powdered dragon's claw into the cauldron, turning the emerald green potion into a bloody red colour. Alyssa walked back over to her bag and fished out her wand as Tom continued to add various powders and liquids to the cauldron.

"This is going to be our greatest invention yet," Tom said with glee.

"A potion that makes your nose grow when you lie. Classic," Alyssa smiled and walked back over to the cauldron. "Did you add everything?"

"Yup. All that's left to do is the charming," Tom said, walking over to where Nagini was curled and letting her slither up his arm onto his shoulders.

"Right. And so according to our predictions, this stuff should turn purple, right?" Alyssa asked as Tom walked over to her bag and pulled out her notebook, reading it as he gathered up the stray vials and bottles.

"Yeah. Just go ahead."

"Okay," Alyssa took a deep breath, and proceeded to chant a complex Latin phrase, her wand almost dipping into the potion. 

Tom stood and watched as Alyssa finished the charm, waiting for the potion to change. "Well?" he asked Alyssa, who was looking down at the cauldron.

"Erm... it's bright blue."

Tom's brow furrowed. "Well... blue is close to purple, isn't it?"

"It doesn't look right."

Tom walked back over to where Alyssa's bag was and started rifling through it, looking carefully at all of the ingredient labels.

"Uh, Tom?"

"Hang on a sec," he called as he continued his search.

"Tom, it's getting brighter."

Tom picked up a bottle labeled 'Ginseng'. "Um... Alyssa? The potion called for Ginger. Not Ginseng."

"Tom?"

"Did you even bring Ginger?" Tom continued to look through her bag.

"Tom?!"

"What?" he asked, turning around to see his sister backing away from the cauldron, which now contained a potion that glowed white-hot. "Alyssa!" he shouted, spinning around just before he was thrown against the wall by a deafening explosion, followed by a blinding light. He tried to call out to his twin, only to find his breath had been knocked out of him. He struggled to sit up, and quickly crawled over to where the cauldron had been. "Alyssa?" he wheezed.

He tried to look for her, but his eyes had been dazzled by the light from the explosion. He sat still as he regained his sight, and once he had them focused again, he looked up.

And screamed.

Alyssa was still standing there, but she was surrounded by something the looked like jagged glass, or clear crystals, that had an opalescent sheen to it. She was standing exactly as she would have been during the explosion: her wand raised, arms in the air, body bent slightly backwards from the force of the blast. And her mouth open in a silent scream, her eyes wide.

And her wide eyes were looking straight at him.

"Alyssssa?" Nagini slithered off of Tom's shoulders, where she had kept herself anchored during the blast. "Alysssssa!" Getting no response, she slithered back over to Tom. "Tom! Help her!"

Tom sat there on the floor, unable to move.

"Tom!" Nagini hissed.

He sat there until morning, Nagini having slithered over to Alyssa's ice block and curled up around it. He sat there, unable to think of what to do. And when the sun shone through the window, painting the floor with blue and yellow light, he began to cry. 


End file.
